Everything old is (brand spanking) new again at the Provincetown Theater

Friday

Apr 26, 2013 at 12:01 AMApr 26, 2013 at 1:37 PM

Spring cleaning is often one of those things put off until the buds, birds and blue skies are back and it’s too late to get much accomplished. Not so for the hardworking volunteers at The Provincetown Theater. Nearly every weekend since the first of the year, they’ve thrown a series of “pizza-and-cleaning,” “pizza-and-purging” or “pizza-and-painting” parties and the results over are impressive.

Rob Phelps

Spring cleaning is often one of those things put off until the buds, birds and blue skies are back and it’s too late to get much accomplished. Not so for the hardworking volunteers at The Provincetown Theater.

Nearly every weekend since the first of the year, they’ve thrown a series of “pizza-and-cleaning,” “pizza-and-purging” or “pizza-and-painting” parties and the results over at 238 Bradford St. are impressive. The theater, converted nearly 10 years ago from a car repair shop and having suffered scuffs, scratches and piles of props over that ensuing decade of productions, is now looking like its old self again.

In fact, it’s looking better than its old self. In the lobby, after board member Ron Robin brought in a design consultant, volunteers have stripped the dark paint off the walls and floor. They’ve spread a brighter shade on the walls and polished the floors, which now seem as smooth and as sprung as a dance studio. They’ve slipped the bar into a neat corner so tables and chairs fit into a café-style set-up, moved the grand piano to the side and rearranged the comfy sofas and armchairs into more intimate areas. It’s a great, fresh space for readings, small concerts, salons and other events.

In the box office, fresh order and new equipment greet theatergoers. Backstage, prop rooms, dressing rooms and storage spaces have been cleared out and renovated.

“The small office at the foot of the stairs had become a catch-all for everything. It was crazy,” says board member Margaret Van Sant. “In that poor little room were layers of shows — Gold Dust Orphans’ puppets. Puppets from ‘Cirque de Sea.’ Layers upon layers of puppets and 10 years of debris.”

In the auditorium, the seating arrangement has been restored to its original configuration, which also allows for a larger audience, better sightlines and at least three times as many universally accessible seats.

They’ve found, cleaned and re-hung the big red velvet curtain donated a decade ago by a local theater-loving couple who wish to remain anonymous but say they deeply appreciate seeing it back up there.

The stage, once again spanning the length of the space, is more than double the size it’s been for the past few years. This also allows for sorely missed wing space, notes set and lighting designer Michael Steers, who has been working tirelessly (and apparently quite happily) to overhaul the light grid on the ceiling.

“The whole thing has been a big to-do,” Van Sant says, “but Michael has been fantastic [working so hard and leading others] in accomplishing it.”

Steers credits Bart Murell and Tony Jackman as “instrumental in getting the lighting block done” and “everyone else for working so hard.” Volunteer Sally Tighe and board member Tom Boland “did more than I can even imagine to redo all the storage, props and costumes upstairs. You should have seen it upstairs,” Steers says. For setting up the new sound board and speakers, Steers thanks Kyle Brackett and Sammy Sewell, two venue managers he worked with at last year’s Tennessee Williams Festival, for which Steers served as technical director.

Thanks to a $14,000 matching grant from the Hiebert Charitable Foundation and the additional $10,000 raised by the theater’s board, again with the help of volunteers and local business owners, says board president Brian Carlson, the new lighting and sound equipment, including a high-definition video projector and screen with surround sound, promise state-of-the-art productions for coming productions. (For the complete line-up, read on.) There’s also a new telephone system and computers.

“The purpose of all this work,” Van Sant says, “is to give a whole new look to the theater to let everyone know how much we care about the space and how much we care about taking care of it.”

Towards that end, the theater has hired a new management team who’ve hit the ground running, working together as a tightly knit team: production coordinator Sunie Pope, program assistant Braunwyn Jackett and office assistant Erika Giokas. You’ll see each of them seemingly everywhere from the box office to the booth to the stage — except, perhaps, Giokas, who says she’s more of a visual artist than an actor so you might catch her signature on the corner of some poster art.

For all these folks — staff, board members and volunteers alike — the theater is more than a home for community players. It’s also the current site for a long line of thespians who’ve put on shows in town for nearly 100 years. Since the late, great American playwright Eugene O’Neill produced “Bound East for Cardiff” in 1916, Provincetown, as everyone is quick to point out, is renowned the world around as the birthplace of modern American theater.

Approaching the centennial of O’Neill’s production, the fundraising continues, including a season-long raffle for travel and a week’s stay in Vieques, Puerto Rico. According to Carlson, Van Sant, who has written many grants for the theater in one of her many roles at the theater over the years, has turned up the original five-year plan for the theater’s development. This plan includes many of the recently made renovations along with a new scene shop, better prop storage, nifty collapsible seating that would bring the seat count up to its capacity of almost 200 and allow an event with tables and chairs to take place during the day and the seats to fold down for an evening show.

The goal is to have some of these ongoing improvements in place by next year’s 10th anniversary of the current theater and even more complete by the 2016 centennial. After all, the show must go on.

The Season:

Don’t miss the 2013 line-up at The Provincetown Theater, 238 Bradford St., just a short stroll through the East End gallery district from the center of town:

“God of Carnage,” a dramatic comedy by Yasmin Rice — April 25-28, May 2-5.

“Across the Pond,” a new musical by Zoë Lewis — May 30-31, June 1-9.

“Pornocchio,” an original parody for adults only presented by Ryan Landry and the Gold Dust Orphans — Tuesday nights, June 18-Sept. 3.